Basquiat

Basquiat

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DVD Reviews of Basquiat

DVD Review: Kevin
Summary: 2 Stars

Cinematography

The cinematography of "Basquiat" is satisfying. It does a good job in establishing the setting of the scenes for the viewers, as well as displaying Basquiat in a way that makes him dominated by his surroundings through the use of high angle shots and slow motion effects. Some examples of these follow:
* The scene where Basquiat displays his art in a gallery consisted of various high-angle/crane shots on Basquiat. In this scene, Basquiat's relationship with his close friends, such as Rene Ricard and his girlfriend, seems to dwindle as he becomes closer with his new friends, Andy Warhole and Bruno Bischofberger. Rene storms out of the gallery after finding out that Basquiat gave away a painting that was promised to be his. The camera films Basquiat with a high-angle, slow motion shot as he exits the gallery. The high-angle shot symbolizes his insignificance and inner pain by means of making the terrain seemingly overwhelm his figure, thus making his appearance irrelevant as he exits the building. Also, as he made his way for the exit, everybody else around him was standing still, seemingly in deep conversation with one another, not noticing the fact that he was leaving. This technique, combined with the slow motion of the camera, symbolized Basquiat's isolation from the crowd and, for that matter, his friends.
Overall, the cinematography was pleasing, as it sometimes made the viewers feel what Basquiat was feeling. It did a decent job in making him seem insignificant in some scenes such when he leaves the studio.

Editing

The editing in Basquiat has a few notable characteristics worth talking about. There were many scenes that showed Basquiat painting his graffiti on walls throughout the city. The scenes used long shots while he was painting and often cut to various segments of the process, thus causing him to look like he was jumping all over the screen. This disrupted the continuity of the scene, making this segment of the film very formalistic. Had the film showed Basquiat painting his graffiti in its entirety, (something that would have violated the concept of Raymond Spottiswoode's content curve) the viewers would have been extremely bored at looking at the same background for such a long period of time.
Another good editing technique was at the end of the movie where Basquiat was riding in a jeep with his friend, Benny. This scene was heavily edited in that there was a mixture of formalistic and realistic editing. The realistic editing involved "cutting to continuity" and fixed camera shots that followed Basquiat throughout his ride in the jeep. The formalistic editing involved more abstract cutting in that there was no continuity between certain shots. The camera shots were also more loose in that they allowed Basquiat to exit the shot into oblivion while the camera stayed fixed on a certain object (such as the wall of a building they drove past). The mixture of these techniques symbolized a state of instability in Basquiat's life. At this point in the film, he was not really sure where he was going to go with his life. The editing did a good job in conveying this by the sudden entrance and exits of Basquiat in certain scenes and stable, fixed shots of him in others.

Interpretive Evaluation

Overall, based on these technical evaluations, the film does an decent job in entertaining the audience. It makes good use of cinematography and editing to visually describe the atmosphere and mood of various scenes. The cinematography also does a
good job in displaying Basquiat's insignificance and isolation through the use of high-angled/slow motion shots and point-of-view shots through glass. The editing also helped to convey these ideas through formalistic and realistic styles of editing. Although not one of the best films I have seen, "Basquiat" definitely stands out in terms of techniques used to display emotion when compared to other artist-based films I have seen.

Description of Basquiat